PDF《THE EMERGING NEW WORKFORCE:》

2010 will be far better positioned to embrace the new workforce and meet legal compliance requirements. The purpose of this Report is to provide employers with the tools to prepare now for the employment and labor law challenges they will likely face when the post-recession workforce emerges. Littler predicts that contingent workers will constitute, on average, a full 50% of the new source of workers to whom employers will turn as the recession ends.3 The result of this trend will be that contingent workers will make up approximately 25% of the total workforce, and this percentage will continue to increase. The trend towards using skilled workers on a temporary, project-by-project, basis is not new, but will become increasingly visible as employers seek to efficiently increase and manage their labor pools following the recession. As far back as the mid-1990s,theMITSloanSchoolofManagementpositedshifting networks of contingent workers as one possible scenario for the workforce of 2015.4 Based on industry research and trends, the scenario envisioned by MIT as possible in

2015 is now likely to become a reality in

2010 ― five years early ― as a result of rapid changes caused by the recession. The deep economic contraction has been far greater that anything forecast in the 1990s, resulting in the likely loss of more than six million jobs. Accordingly, an opportunity has opened to refill these positions with a higher percentage of contingent workers. A. An MIT Model for 21st Century Organizations: Shifting Networks of Small Firms To provide employers a realistic vision of what to expect in the post-recession workforce, Littler has consulted with Professor RobertJ.LaubacherfromMIT,whoco-chairedagroundbreaking study at the MIT Sloan School of Management aimed at envisioning scenarios for future organizational structures. In 1994, MIT began a multi-year research and education initiative titled Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century.5 A key focus was developing coherent scenarios of possible structures of future organizations. The scenarios were intended not as predictions, but rather as visions of potential alternative ways of organizing work and structuring business enterprises in the next century. The scenario process employed a range of techniques, including research, brainstorming, story telling, and sketching narrative accounts delineating the boundaries of what could conceivably occur. MIT framed potential scenarios focusing on what the world would be like in the year 2015, future ways of organizing work and businesses worldwide, and the effects of future organizational forms on economic and non-economic aspects of life for individuals and society. From

1994 to 1997, the possible scenarios were reviewed by and discussed with hundreds of business executives, academics, and consultants. MIT predicted that five variables would likely be the most important driving forces for businesses of the future: (1) technology;

(2) human aspirations (i.e., what will people in the future want?);

(3) global economic, political, and physical environment;

(4) complexity (i.e., will the world continue to become more complex?);

and (5) demographics (in particular, the shift of population and wealth away from North America and Western Europe). THE EMERGING NEW WORKFORCE:

2009 Employment and Labor Law Solutions for Contract Workers,Temporaries, and Flex-Workers Littler Mendelson, P.C. ? Employment &

Labor Law Solutions Worldwide? Considering these elements, the MIT study focused on the sizeofindividualcompaniesofthefuture.Technologicaladvances, allowing instant communication through the Internet and e-mail, globalization,increasededucationandexpertise,andgenerational differences were addressed as having the potential to result in companies having smaller regular workforces, but increasingly relying on enormous networks of contingent workers. The smaller companies envisioned by MIT would have large, temporary networks of thousands of contingent workers. These skilled workers would come together to form temporary organizations or virtual companies that would exist only until the project bringing the network together was completed. MITpositedthatmanylargecorporationsofthe20thcentury were simply a transitional form of business emerging from the industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution, most Americans were self-employed as, for example, farmers, shopkeepers, or artisans, and belonged to a series of institutions, including professional associations and local communities that provided means for finding jobs, sharing learning and skills, and meeting with peers. After the Industrial Revolution occurred in the 19th century, American workers became more closely tied to the employing organization, which they depended upon for everything from benefits to professional development to socializing. TheMITstudyenvisionedthat,duringthenextorganizational phase, the model used in the entertainment and construction industries could become the norm rather than the exception. For example, Hollywood film production companies have long used a business model that brings together talented employees from various sectors, from actors to caterers to complete a specific project. Once one film is completed, the temporary workforce is already transitioning to the next movie or other production. The first element of the scenario envisioned by MIT is fluid networks for organizing tasks. If this scenario were reality, nearly every task would be performed by autonomous teams of between one and ten contingent workers. Companies would submit requests for proposals or otherwise advertise project needs, receive responses from staffing firms and hire workers principally on an ad hoc basis. Work for individuals would be project-based, with freelancers able to bid for new assignments based on their circumstances and preferences. Flexible schedules and telecommuting would become the rule rather than the exception. The second element is the emergence of more stable communities to which people would belong as they move from project to project. The free agent model would change the dynamics of society in that, unlike during the Industrial Revolution, the workplace would no longer be a principal source of social interaction or professional networking. Nor would workersrelyuponemployersforprofessionaldevelopment,health insurance, or retirement savings plans. MIT hypothesized that independent organizations would evolve for social networking, learning, reputation-building, and income smoothing. Such organizations might include professional societies, unions, alumni associations, churches, political parties, service clubs, fraternal orders, neighborhoods, and families/clans. The MIT study recognized the concern that life for independent workers could be difficult, with a continual need to find work and a lack of social interactions. The desirability of this scenario ultimately depended upon the emergence of new organizations to take on the life maintenance role that has been played by employers since the Industrial Revolution. In an article dated October 1997, Professors Laubacher and Malone further addressedtheneedforadditionalsocialnetwo........